This invention relates to ventilation heating and cooling and more particularly to a forced air vent register that can be made to match the surrounding environment.
The normal practice when installing ceramic floor tile is to lay the tile up to the edges of the register opening and then to install a conventional metal register over or in the opening such that the flange of the register overlaps the ceramic tile about the periphery of the register opening and transitions or "dresses" the tiled floor into the register opening. The process is similar whether the flooring material is wood, carpeting, ceramic tile, linoleum, laminate, or stone such as granite, marble or slate.
In upscale residential or commercial buildings, flooring commonly uses expensive hardwoods or tile such as ceramic, slate, marble, granite, laminate, etc. Coordinating the forced air vent registers or grilles to the flooring is desirable but difficult because of the limited styles of registers. Fabrication of matching wood grilles is possible because of wood's structural characteristics but because of the open space required for air passage, wooden registers have limited strength. Although wooden grilles are available at a premium price, they are only readily available in domestic woods such as oak, which will not coordinate with the flooring if the flooring is of an exotic wood or has contrasting colored accents in the area of the register opening. This mismatch between the floor covering and the registers detracts from the area's aesthetic appeal. Additionally, wooden constructed registers are usually "fixed" and do not have the capability to adjust the air flow through the register.
Fabrication of a grill solely from ceramic tile is impractical because the brittle nature of ceramic tile will not accommodate the application of unsupported weight. Hiding or disguising registers in a ceramic tile floor is often impossible as the available registers are of painted or plated steel construction and stand out from the flooring material.
Another problem with existing registers is that they tend to sit slightly above the flooring which emphasizes the visual obtrusiveness of the register. These registers also function as a lip on which to stub toes or damage footwear.
Fabrication of matching registers for each separate type of flooring in all the applicable sizes would be impractical and would result in prohibitively expensive registers.